Page 89 of Tell Me Why
“I don’t think that you can hold Leonard off,” he said as she went to get herself a cup of coffee. “Not for any appreciable period of time. If he thinks that you’re coordinating with me,or even just ignorantly telling me what’s going on, he’s going to see me as a threat and disappear or try to make me disappear. And I’m too close to what I need for us to take a risk like that. He wants an answer, and if you act indecisive, he’s going to get suspicious.”
“I think you’re right,” Tina said, coming to sit with him. He smiled into his mug and nodded.
“I’d worried that you would think it was a condemnation of your skills,” he said, and Tina shrugged.
“Do you see a binder or a post-it note anywhere?” she asked. “This isn’t one of my strengths. Even if it were, though, he wants me toleavewith him.”
“I’d considered having you turncoat, but convince him to keep you around with Daryll and Crissy to feed him information about what I’m up to, but the way he spoke to you, I don’t think he’s even beginning to consider giving you that much autonomy or significance.”
“He did everything in his power to avoid calling me special,” Tina said, and Tell snorted.
“Bother you?” he asked, and she shrugged exaggeratedly.
“I like to think that my ego isn’tthatfragile,” she said, and he laughed.
“No, I wouldn’t want to try that on you, knowing you,” he said, and Tina smiled, looking away.
“See, that’s theoppositeof what he was trying to do,” she said, shaking her head and looking at him again. “You and Hunter, even Ginger, youconsistentlytreat me like I’mspecial. I can’t figure out if it’s… real?… or if it’skindness… or if it’s…”
“Relationship,” Tell supplied, cutting in as though to make sure she knew how firmly he believed it. “You are special because I say so. Because Hunter thinks so. Not because you meet some threshold of utility.”
Tina considered that, then pursed her lips.
“As lovely as that sounds,” she said, “and I do appreciate it, you still make me out to becapableandworthwhile. That’s an evaluation of utility.”
He scratched his chin, then smiled.
“You can’t even take a compliment well,” he said, then winked. “Being a vampire doesn’t make you smarter. Makes a lot of us dumber, but it never makes you smarter. You came in with that.”
Tina pursed her lips, then sipped her coffee.
“I’m smart, I’m skeptical, I’m organized, and I never let you or Hunter get away with anything,” she said. “I’m fabulous, and it’s his loss that he doesn’t know how to turn a girl’s head by seeing that.”
Tell grinned broadly.
“Then it sounds like you’re ready to go in. Unless you want to go feed, tonight, first?”
She shook her head.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “We can just go. I don’t want him to think that I’m stalling.”
Tell nodded.
“I can deal with it, if you want. Go to Daryll, tell him just enough of what happened to get Leonard kicked out.”
“He likes you,” Tina said. “It would set you back, getting rid of him. I can figure out how to tell him that I’m happy where I am without making it look like he’s in danger or you would be angry at him.”
Tell nodded.
“All right. You need anything else? Jacket? It’s getting cool out there.”
Tina missed jackets helping.
Theydidhelp, but that sense of her own internal heat being reflected back at her… oh, how she missed that.
“I’m ready,” she said.
They went down to the parking lot, finding their escort there - bigger than it had used to be - and rode through the darkening city to the house. One of the escorts got Tina’s door, and she followed Tell into the house and through to the lab. The technicians were already at work, and it smelled as though Isabella had been and gone as well, perhaps half an hour or more ago.
